Egg watch Day 26...

[Julirs]

My female is at day 26, is huge, and has been climbing the walls of her cage and roaming endlessly. She has not eaten anything that I know of since Thursday-and she is a good eater. She is drinking regularly. She has a large container filled with a mix of sand and bed a beast, but has never once acted like it even exists. Question-at what point since she has not eaten should I possibly try the large trash can method? The container in her cage is very large with vines leading right to it. She has her privacy and her cage is covered with a towel on the front and sides to minimize distractions.

 

[Dyesub Dave]

Hey Julirs,

What type of chameleon is it that's going to lay eggs? I've read that sometimes starting the hole in the sand for them helps a bit.

And by DAY 26 are you referring to the number of days from when she mated? If it's a veiled she should be starting to dig any day now!!

Dyesub Dave.

 

[Julirs]

Veiled! Yes-and 26 days from the day I took her from the male-she was in with him for 3 days.

 

[Julirs]

We have digging! A few test holes it seems. I am going to water her and go to work-let's hope for eggs when I get home!

 

[Dyesub Dave]

Hey ... well that's a good sign! I was freaking out a bit with mine because she it took six days of digging before she was finished.

Check out my thread here:

https://www.chameleonforums.com/veiled-chameleon-not-laying-6156/

It might be good for comparison in case you're starting to get a little concerned with your cham.

Hope to see some pics of eggs soon!!

Dyesub Dave.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Congratulations, Julirs! Let us know how she's doing when you get home.

Our female veiled laid 48 eggs yesterday! It was very exciting and a little scary.

Before digging her TUNNEL she was never even seen entering (on her own) the huge egg laying container we put in her enclosure.

When I first put the container in her enclosure I placed her in it. She climbed right out. I, too, thought she did not accept the container, and started making plans to use the trash can method. But we did notice that she had taken to resting and, at night, sleeping on vines above the egg laying container as if she were guarding it. We took this to be a good sign.

And then, yesterday, I came into the room to hear her digging away. (This was 22 days after she had been with Guido and her colors had turned gravid.) About 7 hours later she was finished. We dug out 48 eggs. She had created a tunnel which, per county ordinance, should have required a permit!

Her tunnel was about 7 inches from the surface of the dirt, and about 28 inches long (curving along the edge of the large plastic planter we used for an egg laying chamber). I don't know how large the interior of the tunnel was because she had re-packed it very firmly with dirt when she was done. Can you imagine? At her size? Digging out 28 inches of dirt/sand (while pregnant), and then laying 48 eggs, and then packing all that dirt back in there? What a gal!

 

[Dyesub Dave]

WOW Gesang .... 48 eggs ... and only 7 hours!! That's gotta be some kind of record. My veiled was digging for 6-7 days and laid 26 eggs ... I was seriously starting to LOSE MY MIND !! LOLOL

Well Congrats ... and I hope that Julirs has similar success with hers !!

Dyesub Dave.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Right. I was surprised, as well. She's a mature gal, though, and so perhaps quite experienced. We don't know if this was her first clutch, or her 21st.

ANyway, Am looking forward to hearing how it went with Julirs gal today!

 

[Ren]

WOW Gesang .... 48 eggs ... and only 7 hours!! That's gotta be some kind of record. My veiled was digging for 6-7 days and laid 26 eggs ... I was seriously starting to LOSE MY MIND !! LOLOL

Well Congrats ... and I hope that Julirs has similar success with hers !!

Dyesub Dave.

About a month and a half ago April my female laid 57 eggs.... 41 the time before, I have heard them laying as many as 78.. Cowchick's laid 78 but with bad results on her poor little female....

 

[Julirs]

Update-no more digging-drank alot of water. Let's hope for tomorrow. This is stressful-I took the next 3 days off of work (not just for this really )

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

It is stressful. Thank you for the update! Enjoy, if possible, your days off. Hopefully she will get this done tomorrow so you can move onto something else. I know I was distracted for the entire day yesterday.

 

[Dyesub Dave]

About a month and a half ago April my female laid 57 eggs.... 41 the time before, I have heard them laying as many as 78.. Cowchick's laid 78 but with bad results on her poor little female....

WOW ... Very large clutches. I've heard that if the females eat a lot while gravid she will produce more eggs but possibly at the cost of her lifespan. My female veiled was only 7 months old. I had her, a male and another female in an enclosure together since they were small and removed the females at the first sign of action ... but a little too late. I'm just glad that she seems to be doing fine now. I'm going to wait to breed the other female until the New Year as she will be close to a year old by then. Perhaps age or having previous clutches also helps to determine the size!!

Update-no more digging-drank alot of water. Let's hope for tomorrow. This is stressful-I took the next 3 days off of work (not just for this really )

Well that's cool that you have a few days off to keep an eye on progress. Just try to make sure that she doesn't see you. Unless my female was in her hole she was very aware of when I was peeking in on her. Patience is the key and is very difficult to have at this point. You may want to give her the occassional silk worm in case she gets hungry if this should take several days like mine did. Unfortunately my cham wasn't accepting silkworms at that time and I was throwing a couple of crickets in her laying enclosure every couple of days to make sure she had energy. I was worried however that the crickets would damage the eggs or the cham but everything worked out fine.

GOOD LUCK and keep us posted !!

Dyesub Dave.

 

[Julirs]

She is drinking still, but no eating that I know of since Thursday-that is almost a week! (stress) I put a silkie in there but she is not interested. She was heading down to the container, so I will leave her alone and check on her at afternoon watering time.

 

[PardalisGirl]

Egg Watch....

My heart goes out to you....this is such a stressful time. But she knows what to do. She's already shown that she can dig. She's just not quite ready. Just try to go about your routine and try not freak out too much. You can see from the other people posting on this thread that the suspense can drag on for days. We are all waiting for updates!

 

[Julirs]

She is digging away. I can hear her nails on the plastic pot. I did go in and do her afternoon mist and misted the substrate. She drank some but the not eating for almost a week worries me. I hope she lays soon!

 

[kinyonga]

Dyesub Dave said..."I've heard that if the females eat a lot while gravid she will produce more eggs but possibly at the cost of her lifespan"....when the female lays her eggs I feed her well for a couple of days after. The next few days after that seem to be the "critical" time....seems that the amount of food they get then (and to some extent the temperature) determines the number of eggs they will produce in the next clutch...so I put them on a controlled diet and lower the temperature a bit. Once they are past this "critical" period and the eggs are developing, I feed the female well again. (BTW...I don't starve the females at that "critical" time...I just cut them back on the amount of food I feed them.)

I don't know if this is true for all chameleons or not (this critical period)....I have only experimented with veileds and panthers.

With panther chameleons I seem to be able to control the clutch size but I can't stop the cycling. They still produce clutches but the number of eggs is in the low 20's.

With veileds, I seem to be able to stop the cycling completely. I have had females that are over 6 years old that have never laid a single egg. (I have one right now that is 6 1/2 and never laid an egg.)

I have also cycled a female that produced no eggs for the first two+ years of her life and she mated and produced a fertile clutch. I still have one of her daughters that is now over 3 and she has never produced a single egg. The mother was over 6 when she died.

 

[Julirs]

Day 28-heard her digging this morning. I am so worried about her not eating for a week now, and want her to lay these eggs so I can feed her!

 

[Dyesub Dave]

That's EXACTLY how I felt about mine !! Just be patient ... she will hopefully be done soon. As long as she's digging that seems to be a good sign. On the last night my female stayed in the tunnel she dug ALL NIOGHT and I didn't hear any digging at all.

I was LOSING MY MIND!! I thought for sure something had happened to her. The next morning ... no sign of her and no sounds. And then about half an hour later I saw her head coming out of the tunnel as she was filling it in.

I was SO RELIEVED !! So I left her to finish off her job and then when she was back up on her branch I moved her to another enclosure with lots of water, food and heat and let her rest. She must have been EXHAUSTED .... SEVEN days of digging with almost no food.

So I'm sure everything will be fine. Just keep an eye on her and try not to panic!


Dyesub Dave.

 

[kinyonga]

Why can't you feed your chameleon? As long as there are no insects left in the cage or egglaying bin once she is turned around in the hole with her bum down laying her eggs its okay to feed her. Once she is "bum down" the insects might chew on her or the eggs...but up until then there is no reason not to give her food and to mist the cage or container too. (If you are handfeeding, then I would only do that when she is up in the branches though.)

 

[Julirs]

I am misting as normal 3 times a day and she is drinking everytime. I am putting silkworms in regularly too but she is not eating them. I am feeding her and always have been, but SHE is not eating...